A Chance Encounter Changes Things
by Galadriel1010
Summary: Time has passed, some people have moved on, others haven't. Some people have been hurt more than others. I really don't want to give anything away. Sorry, frustrating summary I know. Very AU. End of series 2 doesn't happen
1. Chapter 1

Tosh pulled her gloves off as she got through the door of the smart new coffee shop. It had been open a few weeks now but, Torchwood being Torchwood, they hadn't had a chance to visit it yet. They had all agreed that the first visit should be the full experience, so this afternoon had seemed the perfect opportunity. It was quiet and peaceful, with bookcases full of classic novels and some newer stuff, comfy looking leather armchairs and sofas cluttered around dark wood tables and ragwork rugs covering the floor. It was obviously carefully placed clutter, but you couldn't describe it any other way. Owen and Gwen had given the place a cursory once over and made their way over to the counter already ad were waiting for her, so she made her way over to join them unhurriedly. They ordered their drinks and cakes (which looked too good to pass up on) from a cheerful girl in her mid twenties, softly rounded with pregnancy. Gwen leapt on the traditional conversation-opening gambit of all mothers, "How far along?"

Fiona, as her name badge informed them, smiled warmly and rubbed her slight bulge, "16 weeks. Can still see my toes." She did a mock victory dance and Gwen laughed along with her, "I've got two already, it's starting to feel like I'm playing peek-a-boo with my own feet."

"I know what you mean." Gwen shook her head fondly, "We've got three. Said we were going for two, but the last two came in a pair and messed with the schedule a bit. Still, I'm not complaining. The youngest are three now, I've only just gone back to work."

"Yeah, I'm just doing this part time at the moment, give the Grandmas a chance to look after them a couple of days a week, and me a chance to get out of the house. I'm sure Ianto will be able to manage without me though once I go back." The team had all frozen involuntarily at the name and gaped openly when that Ianto emerged from the back room, "Won't you dear?"

"Whatever you say Fi." He nodded at his old teammates, "Afternoon guys, long time no see, how's it going?"

They couldn't find words, Ianto looked so similar to the last time they'd seen him. Older, certainly, but not that much older. Torchwood hadn't ravaged him the same way it had them and it had only been a few years really, it just felt longer. He was wearing a dark waistcoat and light shirt, pocket watch chain hanging across the front, they almost expected Jack to walk out of the back room behind him and start giving them all order with a sly look at Ianto which wasn't intended to but did tell the team what they'd been up to in the back room.

Owen was the first to regain the power of speech, "Bloody Hell. You're looking good mate."

He inclined his head with that familiar smirk and gestured towards one of the groups of chairs, "Mind if I join you for a drink? They're on me." He added to Fiona with a smile and wouldn't take 'no' for an answer.

They got settled down and immediately Ianto was deluged with questions. He raised his hands in defence, "One at a time guys, I'm a bit out of practice."

Owen raised his hand like a fish slice, "We didn't trigger your memories, you just… knew?"

He couldn't look at any of them for that one, "I remembered after a week. Saw the SUV going past and 'wham'. Three years of memories dropped into my head in one go, wasn't pretty but…" He shrugged, "If he wanted to get rid of me, he should have got me out of Cardiff."

Gwen looked at him with her head on one side, "He didn't want rid, he just wanted us safe. You know he did it to us too, right?"

"You went along with it, I wanted to stand with him."

"We all did." She frowned, "But once the danger was past, he came and found us all again. He'd explained it all to Rhys, who helped me. I didn't come back at that point, we were trying for a baby and I didn't want to change the plan when I recovered."

Tosh leapt in, "Owen and me, we'd left ourselves messages for him to give us to get us back if we wanted to come. When he couldn't find you, we realised that you'd not wanted to lose your memories. We hated him, we gave him hell for it… I don't understand though, if you remembered, you could have contacted one of us. Even if you didn't want to see him, you could have told one of us you were safe."

"But you would have told him, I don't want him to know." He scrubbed his hands down his face, "When my memories came flooding back, can you imagine that, going from not believing in aliens to remembering Canary Wharf, loving and losing Lisa, loving Jack and then being betrayed by him. Repeatedly I hasten to add. I remembered a life without all that danger, and I also remembered the life with the danger, the fake memories faded with time but in that moment they were both there and… I couldn't do it. I could never go back to Jack, not after that, but I couldn't go back to Torchwood either." He gestured around, "I'm my own boss. I know how to defend myself if I get attacked by Weevils out by the bins, but I'm not facing that threat every day."

Tosh smiled sadly, "So we're not going to be able to persuade you to come back to us?"

"No." He shook his head firmly, "And you can tell Jack that in no uncertain terms. I don't want him in here either."

Gwen touched his arm, "We can't."

"Why not?" Ianto was wary, there was something guarded and pained in her tone

"Jack doesn't work for Torchwood any more. He comes in occasionally, has a cup of tea, brings us cake usually, shares the news, helps us out when something major happens, but he's not part of Torchwood."

"What's he doing then?" Scenarios flashed through his head, "UNIT, training of some sort?"

Tosh shook her head, "We think he's still looking for you. He'd never think to look this close to home, and even if he did, how would he find one Ianto Jones in Cardiff?"

"We think he gave you up for dead years ago mate, but it'll never stop him looking." Owen was watching him closely, telling him more with his eyes than with his words, "I reckon that he'll still be looking for you in a thousand years. You're not the first question he asks, but as soon as it's politely possible he asks if we've heard from you, seen you."

"Please Ianto." Gwen squeezed his knee now, and then backed off again, "Let us at least tell him you're safe. Even if he doesn't know where, just knowing that we've seen you would help him… I don't know, let him live again I suppose."

Ianto felt something cold and hard settle in his stomach and the love he still felt for the bloody man clutched at his heart, "Do I need to ask why he left?"

Owen shook his head sadly, "We made his life absolute hell. None of us, when we realised that he'd done it against your will, we figured same as you, that he wanted rid. And even if he hadn't, what he did was inexcusable. But none of us stopped to look and think. I mean, in my expert medical opinion, he was dotty about you. Absolutely crazy about you, you could see it every time he looked at you. And we were blind enough not to see how much not having you there was hurting him. So we threw everything we could at him to make him suffer for what he did to you. What he really needed was a shoulder to cry on, having lost the man he loved more than anything in the world. What he got was shit from the people who were supposed to be his friends.

"I don't know how much truth there was in what he always told us, that he didn't sleep, but it was six months before he collapsed at work." The bottom dropped out of Ianto's stomach, the rest of the team looked guilt stricken, "Just crossing the Hub one day, someone snapped at him and he just… gave up. Keeled over, fell down the stairs, but he was dead by the time he hit the floor. Close to 'died of a broken heart' as you'll ever hear a doctor admit. It was a while before he woke up, gave Tosh long enough to look at the CCTV logs. He hadn't slept since you left. Not even catnaps at his desk. He spent every spare second scouring CCTV footage from right across the world for you, and when he wasn't doing that he was crying. No, when he was doing that he was crying too, but sometimes he just cried, over that picture of the two of you at Gwen's wedding.

"We tried to send him home when he recovered a bit, we didn't realise he didn't have anywhere to go but your place. Tosh took him and he broke down in the car when he saw that all the lights were off. He left Torchwood five years ago, said it held too many echoes. Yeah, it's not a turn of phrase you forget easily." He said in answer to Ianto's questioning, grief and guilt-stricken look, "We see him maybe once every couple of months."

"Last time would be, what, five weeks ago?" Ianto asked, surprising them with his level tone as well as his accurate knowledge. It completely failed to give away how ripped apart he was inside. How had they done this to each other? For six years he'd lived in the belief that the love of his life no longer wanted him and had betrayed him. Now he knew that, had Jack been mortal, the man would be dead because of it.

Tosh's answer dragged him back to the coffee shop, "Yeah, you heard about that then?"

He managed a dry chuckle, "Oh please Tosh, no offence but you're nowhere near as good at cover-ups as I am. Was. Have been. And the teenagers in masks thing is a bit… if you know what you're looking for you can see patterns."

"No offence Ianto, but you're the best. No one is as good as you. I'm not going to try to persuade you to come back, it wouldn't feel right, but we're struggling. Losing Jack was only as hard a blow as losing you was, without you we only had half a team, the shouty, shooty half." Tosh squeezed his hand, "We…"

Owen butted in, "I'll say what Tosh won't, we need you. And Jack needs you."

Ianto hesitated, then nodded slowly, "I'm with you. Just not this afternoon, I'll need to find somewhere to take this place over, just a manager though. Give me a month to get out of here, and feel free to get me wired for aliens tonight. I'll pop by the Hub tomorrow morning, if that's OK?"

They breathed a sigh of relief, "Ianto, that's more than OK."

* * *

**Author's Note:** This is just one of those things I wanted to try. I love stories where Jack retcons Ianto and has to win him back, but I sort of wanted to do the emotional impact of having to do that on Jack, but without actually doing the emotion. I hope it's all self-explanatory as to what's happened. More to come  
Gxxx


	2. Chapter 2

Jack rested his elbows on his knees and supported his chin on his clasped hands. Tired blue eyes watched people coming and going in the weak Cardiff sunshine amidst the bustle of yet another fair on the Plass. It was the height of Summer and every weekend was a festival, music and merriment entertaining the residents and visitors to his adopted home city. A troupe of colourful Samba dancers twisted and turned to what sounded like a variation on a theme of Freebird, children pestered their parents for balloons or toys, chattering teenage girls tried on jewellery and bags at the market stalls, and he checked every face, searching for one. One face that he knew probably wasn't in Cardiff anymore anyway. He got up and stretched, allowing himself to enjoy the feeling of the sun on his bare arms for a moment before returning to his task, shoving his hands into his shorts pockets as he wound through the crowd, outwardly relaxed, inwardly dying. His feet took him automatically to the Invisible Lift, where he stood to watch proceedings again from the other end of the Plass. No one could see him here, which suited him a way, but didn't in another. What if Ianto was now sitting where he had been sitting, what is he passed behind Jack and didn't see him because he was on the lift, what if Jack just missed him, what if he was in Newport, or London, or France, or America, or on the Moon? All Jack seemed to have these days was 'what if?', and the rare positive ones had died out a long time ago. Six years since he'd last seen those blue eyes, heard that voice, felt that heart beat. He didn't know if he was still alive, he didn't know anything. The team would know he was here by now, could he walk away? Yes

Hands back in pockets he headed off through the festivities again, unaware of four pairs of eyes watching him go on the CCTV monitors. Outwardly he seemed relaxed, the heavy tension on his shoulders had been eased by time, still there but now such a part of him that you couldn't see it, the scars from his darkest period had long since healed to nothing, or just sunk through his skin onto his heart to lie with the others. Morbid, Jack Harkness? Never.

The clouds started moving faster, although the air was still nearly still at ground level, and the smaller ones scudded across the sky like dodgems or go-carts at a stratospheric fair. Suddenly the happy atmosphere, the preponderance of candyfloss and balloons, was oppressive and he had to get away. Not to his flat, that was too empty, not to Ianto's flat for the same reason (although he visited occasionally, made sure it was ready should Ianto return, the place was a little more dead each time he went). His feet took him back to his car, his car took him away. The little 1955 MGA had been raring for a proper run since the start of summer and he'd resisted the urge, but now he needed it just as much. He put his foot down and actually smiled at the familiar roar, the surge of power under the bonnet, the way the road seemed to open up in front of him once he got out of the city. If all roads lead to Rome (or roam to Leeds), then surely all roads lead anywhere else as well? He could go anywhere. Today though, he didn't go too far, heading up through the Brecon Beacons towards a small border town where the bookshops seemed to outnumber the houses. By the time he got there it was late in the afternoon, too late to browse the bookshops (probably a good thing, he always bought one for Ianto when he was here and the bookshelves were already full) but not too late for hot chocolate (never coffee) and cake in the afternoon sunshine below the castle. He wandered some more, resisted the urge to pop in to any of the book shops but giving in to the pull of one of the little antique shops where at least some of the stuff was older than he was. On impulse, he bought a teapot, and then wondered why. The lady behind the counter asked him if he collected tea sets or was it a gift. He said that he fancied a cup of tea and she laughed. Now he was back outside, she'd locked the shop up and bade him a good night, her girlfriend had picked her up (score one to the Harkness) and he was left with his empty thoughts and a delicate gold and blue teapot.

He set it carefully in the passenger foot well and got back in the driving seat, heading out of the town again, up into the hills to watch the sun set from the top of the ridge. Once the gold had faded from the landscape, leaving the sky that beautiful mid blue that reminded him so much of what he'd lost, he got back in the car and turned back towards Cardiff. It got steadily darker as he drove, the warmth of day leaking away into the now completely clear sky and taking with it the blanket that obscured the stars. Here, out in the Beacons, he could look up and see them spread out, calling out to him as they always had, but not strong, not since… Not since he'd lost his anchor. Strange that, that without someone anchoring him there, the urge to stray away was weaker.

The lights of Cardiff started to become visible occasionally, through or over hills, and he felt a wave of homecoming and longing. He was back on the road that had taken them to and from that horrific village so many years ago. They would be on their guard when the ten-year anniversary came around, just in case.

Cardiff finally absorbed him again, outskirts giving way to new housing estates, then older council estates, then the city itself and he let the car do the driving, watching separately as it took him to the Torchwood parking spaces where one was still left for him, even five years after he left active duty. Still, he'd been active there twenty times as long as he'd been inactive.

They hadn't changed the entry codes or lock up procedures (why change something that had worked for so long?) except for the usual annual security checks and occasional Hub invasions, and they'd always kept him in the loop, so he let himself easily once he realised that all their cars were gone. The non-silence of the place wrapped itself around him as soon as he shut the door behind himself and he found himself comforted by the familiar rhythms and patterns of the computers, the dripping damp, occasional creak of stone or clank of plumbing.

Entering the Hub proper, he raised a hand in greeting to Myfanwy, who had swooped down on him with what he liked to think were joyous cries of welcome but were probably just yells of "Feed me!" No wonder Ianto had named her after his cat. Ianto. There was that familiar pang. How long would it take for a bar of chocolate (dark, your favourite, he thought at the dinosaur as he fed her), a coffee mug (one left on Owen's desk, as always), a sign in Welsh (one of Gwen's he suspected, "I am out of the office at the moment"), the simplest things, to stop making that pain in his chest that accompanied every thought of his once lover, ever love? Very little didn't bring pain since he'd betrayed and, as a result, lost Ianto. In a way, he didn't want it to stop hurting, he deserved the pain, and once it went it would mean that he'd got used to not having the beautiful, wonderful, courageous, brilliant man in his life. How could he have been so stupid?

He dragged his thoughts back to the surface and realised that a fourth desk was set up, and the Hub smelt faintly of coffee. He tried to be happy, or at least relieved, that the others had found someone to fill one of the holes that Torchwood always had, apparently Ianto's general support role, judging by the general neatness of the space, especially the new desk, and someone who could work the coffee machine to boot. It needed, deserved to be used, that was its sole purpose. But he couldn't help the pain that one more thing of Ianto, one more thing that had been them had gone. One day, even Jack would be forgotten, just a name in the files to some future team.

There was little left to cling to now. The silk tie that had been left in his bunker was worn from his absentminded stroking and watermarked from his constant crying, the shirts stopped smelling of him after only a few months, no matter how hard he tried to deny it, but now hung alongside Jack's own in his flat. The team had insisted that he needed somewhere to do more than exist; he knew when he wasn't wanted.

He turned his back on the Hub and climbed up to his office, still laid out as it had been since he'd moved into it. They came up here to clean occasionally, but usually left it to him on one of his visits, as if they didn't want to disturb it. His coat hung on the coat stand by the door and he touched it gently as he passed, wanting the connection to that other life that surrounded him. Tosh had once told him that whilst he was dead after Abaddon, Ianto had held the coat and cried into it, and that they'd found him asleep under it the next morning. He'd regretted not leaving it behind when he left with the Doctor, but he hadn't actually meant to leave. If he had, he would have left it as proof that he was coming back. So many regrets, so much time.

The chair seemed to groan as he sank into it and he couldn't help but sympathise as his hands went automatically to the pile of papers on the desk's surface. Flicking through the reports they left for him on major incidents on the off chance that he'd drop by at night, just to keep him in the loop. He appreciated it, appreciated having this little family he could return to when he was at his most despairing to remind him where he'd come from, if not where he was going. Nothing much over the last few weeks, he spotted the far too familiar form for signing on new staff and set the pile aside deliberately. He'd come in in the morning and meet the guy before he formed conclusions from words on a page. At least, he was assuming it was a guy, could easily be another girl. Or even PC Andy. He laughed at the unintentional insult to the PC, sorry, Police Sergeant these days. Maybe he'd look him up after he'd checked on the team, visit Rhys and the kids. Go back to Ianto's flat and give him that ruddy teapot. The whole Memory Road trip.


	3. Chapter 3

Ianto held the bar of chocolate up as soon as he stepped into the cavernous base and gave a laugh of delight as Myfanwy snatched it out of his hand neatly and landed close by to let him stroke her, "Hey girl, you remember me then, did you miss me?"

"You bet she did." Tosh smiled at him warmly, hugging her shoulder strap close to her chest, "We all did, it's good to have you back."

"It's good to be back." He was telling the truth, the month was up and he was working full time for Torchwood again, running the coffee shop remotely through Fiona and her cousin, who he'd hired as manager. Over the last month he'd gone on late night Weevil hunts with Owen, helped Tosh out in the archives in the mornings before the shop opened and got back into the swing of liasing with UNIT with Gwen. And he hadn't made Jack a coffee since the end of the first week.

The atmosphere in the Hub was strange; not hostile or uncomfortable, just strange. There was something missing, something tall, handsome and charismatic. No one looked up towards the empty office, no one sat in the chair at the head of the table in the boardroom, in some ways it was like he was still there, in others it was like he'd died and they were honouring his memory. It messed with Ianto's head, walking in the ghostly footsteps of his absent… Jack's ghostly footsteps.

Owen bounded through the door and hurled his jacket across the desk onto his chair (he missed) and heading straight through to the autopsy bay, "Yes please Ianto, with a dash of something stronger if I'm allowed?"

Ianto shook his head fondly; Owen had mellowed over the last six years (due largely to Tosh's influence. Who knew? The guy did have a clue after all) but was still essentially Owen. Tosh was happier and more confident now he wasn't making her feel small all the time and apparently they were considering adding to the Torchwood babies brood now that Gwen was back at work. Gwen was still the Mother Hen, but even more so since she'd practiced on her own children. And Ianto… Hadn't changed. At all.

They'd been sitting around on the sofa behind Tosh's desk for five minutes, trading stories of the last six years (avoiding the subject of Jack), and Ianto had just had to get up and put that pizza box in the bin. And then make them all coffees because he needed something to do with his hands. And then he'd spotted the report on Owen's desk dated a month before and that was it. He was back in the General Support role as if he'd never left, although the archive showed that he had.

So here he was, in the kitchenette he'd thought he'd never see again, admitting to himself now he was back just how much the idea of not coming back had upset him and making up four mugs of coffee. A yell came from the main body of the Hub and he glanced back over his shoulder, smiling as Gwen found out that Owen had poured a bottle of water over her chair earlier. Yeah, nothing had changed really.

Seeing the team again like that had been a shock; he couldn't deny that he'd been expecting them to come by at some time, and he had genuinely wanted to see them (if Jack had been there, well it might have been different, he had listened very carefully to make sure the Captain wasn't there, and now he was eaten up by guilt over it) but they had changed so much. Tosh's hair was the shortest he'd ever seen it, and the ring on her finger – he'd not been expecting that. Of course, once he'd seen it he would have been disappointed if Owen hadn't been wearing a matching one, and he knew there had to be a story in there (They had thought that Tosh wouldn't make it, so Owen had insisted on a death bed ceremony. That's Torchwood timing.) Gwen… let's just say that you could tell she'd been pregnant and hadn't been doing all the running about that came with Torchwood for a while. Owen's hair was as short as ever, he was slightly greying and a scar ripped across his face. Working at Torchwood, if you were lucky you died young and pretty, if you were unlucky you died young and disfigured. Quite honestly, he was surprised they were all still alive.

"Ianto, save me!" He rolled his eyes with a theatrical huff and added the requested splash of brandy to Owen's coffee, having already substituted Tosh and Gwen's milk with Bailey's. Out in the main Hub, the medic was holding an irritated Gwen at bay with outstretched bloody hands and Tosh was working quietly, trying to ignore them. "Ianto mate. She's gone mad!"

He gave Tosh her drink, then set the tray down on the clear surface of his desk and picked up his own mug, giving the slightly smirking glare over the top of the mug that had returned to him the second he walked through the cog door and saw the state of the place. Torchwood appeared to be ingrained in his psyche, and he was immensely glad that he didn't have to live without it. He exchanged an amused glance with Tosh as Gwen gave up on her attack, muttering about men refusing to grow up, and leaned back on the desk, stretching his legs out and smiling at the ceiling. "Nothing changes, does it?" He asked suddenly, "One hundred years ago the team had the immature one, the Mum, the Techie and the tidy one. In one hundred years it'll be the same."

"Even Jack's in the same position as he was a century ago." Tosh agreed absentmindedly, unwittingly dragging the conversation back to painful waters, "At least we're living longer than we did then. We're all thirty now, and I've managed over ten years." She smiled, "Which makes me the longest serving Torchwood member after Jack."

"You never said." Owen picked his own mug up and ran his fingers over Tosh's shoulder gently, getting her attention so that he could tilt her head up for a kiss, "Congratulations, how long ago did you pass that marker?"

"Seven months and sixteen days." Ianto beat her to it, "If I'd known for certain that you were still here, I would have sent flowers."

"You're only allowed to send flowers once I die." She wagged a finger at him, "And I don't intend for that to happen for a very long time."

"What are you aiming for?" Gwen asked, wrapping her fingers around her mug and leaning over, "Will you leave, quit while you're ahead?"

Tosh and Owen shared looks and she covered his hand with her own, "Once Ianto's settled in again, we're going to have to start looking for people to replace us. We're going, before we get too old to have children."

He shrugged and moved so that she could lean back against him, "We're getting too old to chase aliens every day, time to chase something a bit less deadly."

Ianto smiled sadly, "How are we ever going to find people to fill your shoes?"

Tosh reached across and squeezed his hand, "I'm sorry Ianto, you've only just come ho… back and now we're off."

She was right first time, he'd come home, "It's my fault Tosh. I walked away, it was a mistake. All I did was hurt the people I love."

"Don't let him get away with it just because you feel guilty mate." Owen warned him, "You've both got a lot to answer for, him more than you by my reckoning."

There was an uncomfortable silence for a while, until Gwen clapped her hands and broke it, "OK, you're not allowed to leave yet you two, we've not got replacements for you yet. Ianto, pet." He groaned and rolled his shoulders, "Sorry, archives. Owen, finish that autopsy and don't throw any more of it at me. Tosh, have you got those readings?" She nodded, "Fantastic, can you talk me through them?"

Ianto sighed heavily and headed off to his domain, glancing up at the dark office on his way through, and knew that even if his relationship with Jack never recovered, he needed him in the Hub. Torchwood wasn't Torchwood without him. And he knew that he would do everything he could to win him back, because life wasn't life without him, and he'd been lying to himself for six years.

* * *

He took the report from Owen's upheld hand as he passed and skimmed through it with expert ease, mentally categorising it and scribbling a note on the corner of the file before he slipped it into the filing cabinet by his desk. The archive work was as mind-numbingly interesting as it had always been, which only sounded like a contradiction in terms if you hadn't cross referenced over one hundred years of archived reports on alien-human interaction.

Tosh called him over and he immediately tensed at her tone. He understood it as soon as he saw the CCTV feed on her monitor, showing a familiar but very different figure standing on the invisible lift, "He's got his legs out."

"Who?" Owen was drying his hands off as he came to join them, "And are the legs worth looking at? Ah." He added as he recognised the figure on the screen.

"What do you think Owen, legs worth looking at?" Ianto really wanted to turn away, to make a point of taking those files up to Jack's office, but he figured he'd lost that right and he just couldn't. He hadn't seen his once lover, ever love for six years. No one else had come close to catching his interest and when he saw Jack again, even the grainy image on the monitor, he was shown, or reminded of why. His breath hitched, his heart rate raced, his stomach clenched and his hands balled into fists; Jack was so beautiful it hurt, and he missed him so, so much. The immortal was looking for something (someone) amongst the crowd, shoulders and back tense and hands in his pockets. Eventually he rolled his shoulders in a half shrug, glanced once towards the camera, not enough for them to see his face, and walked away into the crowd.

Ianto didn't know how long he'd been standing there, just watching, but it took a moment or two to realise that the sound he'd heard and dismissed was him, and that tears were rolling almost idly down his cheeks. He dashed them away angrily and picked up the files he'd set aside, hesitating when he couldn't remember where he'd been going, then heading off up to Jack's office. It wasn't intentional, but he closed the door behind him and found himself sinking into the chair, tracing fingers along the grain of the solid desk (good job it was so solid, the things they'd got up to on it) until they touched against the letter he'd left there on his first day back, the letter where he poured out his feelings for Jack and begged his forgiveness. It was seven words. "I'm so sorry. I still love you."

He picked it up and turned to leave, it wasn't enough, but he could never write enough. Actions were easier, just the right touch to make Jack relax, or smile, or shag him senseless, they came naturally; words were contrived. He spent far too much of his life considering the exact right word for the situation, how to convey the most meaning in the fewest words. When it came to written messages, he preferred a scribbled note on a Post-It to the pre-packed schmoltz of a Hallmark card or a long, considered love letter. Jack had written him love letters whenever he'd gone away overnight, often beating the letters home, and that had been what Jack did when he couldn't sleep alone and every word had come straight from the heart. Ianto had kept every letter, carefully filed away in his bedside cabinet. One of the hardest moments of his return was finding the thirty or so new letters that Jack had written for him whilst he was 'gone', tearstained declarations of devotion and desolation, forlorn and hopeless appeals for forgiveness, absolution or just an answer. He'd wept unashamedly as he read them, trying not to touch the paper for fear of damaging this link, this connection. Then he'd cried himself to sleep at two in the afternoon, clutching onto sheets that smelled of Jack, where Jack had cried himself to sleep too often since they'd last shared this bed, shared this flat, shared a life. Tosh hadn't expected him to return that day, and she'd told Gwen that he'd gone back to the coffee shop rather than his flat, which kept her from fussing.

She was watching him now, knew when she'd got his attention and nodded briefly before turning back to her work, giving him as long as he needed. It didn't seem to be something he did, just something that happened. His hand reached out, the one still with the letter in it (how could those words ever compare to Jack's?) and touched the soft, strong wool of the greatcoat by the door. He watched with sad detachment as the other hand joined it and lifted the coat (still so heavy) to his face. When he felt the moisture on it he realised that he was crying into it and sank into the chair again, tucking the letter away into the pocket before giving way completely, clinging onto the coat whilst his composure escaped. "Oh God." He whispered into the coat, "How?"

"Too easily mate." Owen was behind him, "I'm sorry, but we've got a rift alert."

He put the coat back on the stand and brushed it smooth, "Oh look, a distraction."

* * *

They sat in the pub that night, drinking slowly and simply enjoying each other's company. The rift alert had been brief but stressful and they all needed the wind down. Ianto had been determined to stay the night after seeing Jack, arguing that if he came, he wanted to be there, and that the Hub wasn't any more unhealthy for him than their flat. Owen had kicked him (of course literally) towards the door, pointing out that there was no guarantee he'd come and that the flat wasn't damp, mouldy, falling down and full of Pteranodon. Beer won. Or it did, until they limited him to two pints. "How long are you going to mother me?" He asked miserably as Gwen's attention returned and she took her pint back with a half amused frown

Tosh shrugged and sucked on her pink straw, "Until we think you don't need it any more. Come on Ianto, " she nudged him, "I need someone to practice on."

"And on that note." He drained his cola (cola? What?) and stood up, grabbing his bag from the seat, "I need to get some sleep, it's been a very long day."

"If you go near the Hub, I'll know about it." Tosh pointed the straw at him

He raised his hands in supplication, "I'm going home, see you in the morning."

They watched him go with concern in their eyes; Owen was the one to vocalise their thoughts, "Shit, we've got another Jack on our hands."


	4. Chapter 4

Gwen rested her head on her hand and stared blearily into the middle distance, doing her very best to ignore Tosh and Owen's soft, affectionate morning routine and Ianto's familiar quiet drift. They were being exceptionally quiet this morning, but this was the worst hangover she'd had in her entire life and all she could do was attempt to block everything. As a result, it took a gentle touch to her shoulder for Ianto to get her attention, "Bore da Ianto." She frowned and tried to switch her brain back into English; they were bringing the children up bilingual, but they spoke mainly Welsh at home. Hangover + two languages = headaches all round

He just smiled at her and put a mug down with two pills, "Bore da Gwen, hangover cure coffee, a couple of Owen's special medicine pills and don't do it again. We're heading up to the board room."

She groaned and took the pills with a couple of sips of coffee, then stood up and took the drink with her, slipping an arm through Ianto's so they had to walk together, "There's four of us, why do we use the board room?"

He shrugged, "Don't ask me, I'm just the Tea Boy." She opened her mouth to protest and he cut her off with a gentle squeeze, "I chose this, remember? That's what I'm good at, making things happen. But I let other people decide what it is that I make happen. So when it all goes tits up, it wasn't my idea."

She chuckled and squeezed him back; "I'll remember to blame you for everything then."

"I don't doubt it." He steered her into a chair and rumbled out a chuckle at her irritated, amused glare, then sat down next to her, across from Tosh, "What have you got for us today Tosh?"

"Sorry guys, that delivery's arrived from UNIT, we're all on archiving duty today, so Ianto, you're in charge."

"Bonus." He rolled his shoulders back and accepted the file summaries from her, "OK, two teams. Tosh, you and I will deal with the stuff from van to archive, get it labelled up and categorised correctly, then you two just need to put it in the right place and enter it onto the system. You OK with that?"

They were nodding their assent when the proximity alarm sounded loudly, startling them all. Tosh, Gwen and Owen looked down to the Hub, then up at Ianto, who was staring fixedly at the surface of the table, knuckles white in his lap, "That's gotta be him." Owen pointed out quietly and redundantly

Tosh stood up and gestured towards the door, "Stay here Ianto, we'll send him up."

"If it's not him, come when we start screaming." Owen joked, the best reassurance he could have wished for. "Good luck mate."

He smiled nervously and wondered how much good luck one person could have. Surely he must be nearing his limit. He didn't look up at the sound of excited conversation from down below, even when tears pricked his eyes at the sound of that distinctive laugh. He could see the mega-watt smile, Jack probably standing with his hands on Tosh's hips and hers on his broad shoulders, or with an arm around the shoulders of each girl, grinning like a loon at Owen. He'd laugh with them, ask if they'd missed him, ask how they were getting on. There'd be awkward pauses, covered by Gwen or Tosh hugging him and telling him it was good to see him again, then someone would suggest he went up to the board room and they'd get some drinks and join him up there. Then footsteps would ring up the metal stairs, across the walkway and pause outside the door as their owner saw that he was in the room. The door would open, slowly and near silently, but Ianto knew the slight sounds the Hub made by now, and Jack would be there.

"Have I finally gone insane?" His voice was soft, broken, on the verge of tears

Ianto looked up, straightened up and faced the man he'd spent six years running from, six years hurting. "Jack." He swallowed hard and met Jack's eyes, cursing himself for the pain he saw there, "I'm home, or nearly home." Then Jack was coming towards him and their arms were around each other, hands gripping onto clothes and faces burying themselves into shoulders and necks, tears streaming down both their faces and sobs wracking both their frames. There would be talk later, guilt and blame and absolution and forgiveness and stories of the years they hadn't shared and then they would make love and try to bridge the years and who knew if they'd succeed or not? But not now, now they needed this, this shared support and grief and joy. He smiled through his tears and clung even tighter to the missing part of his heart, "Now I'm home."

* * *

The team made themselves busy as Jack headed up to the boardroom; Tosh went up to his office to 'get the files they needed to show him', Gwen went to the kitchenette to 'get coffee and cake' and Owen went down to the archives to 'get an artefact they'd found that Jack might be interested in'.

Tosh checked the CCTV feed from the boardroom on Jack's computer and killed the camera to give the two men some privacy, then activated her comms. Up in the boardroom, Ianto released one hand for just long enough to pull his earpiece out and toss it across the room, earning him a tearful laugh from Jack as his hand gripped onto the waist of Jack's T-shirt again. Tosh waited until the little light that indicated that Ianto's comms were active blinked out before she spoke, "Guys, back to Ianto's plan, but Owen with me."

_"Tosh…"_ Gwen started

"Just do it Gwen." She sighed, "They need space to work this out between them. If I'm right, they'll disappear whilst we're working; today they're just Jack and Ianto. We, however, are Torchwood, and we've got work to do. Owen?"

_"On my way up there now, I'll hold the lift for you."_

"Thanks Owen." She was smiling as she logged off Jack's computer and finished tidying his desk, then hurried down to meet him and ride up to the garage with him. He pulled her close and wrapped his arms loosely around her waist, pressing a kiss against the side of her neck. She sighed heavily, "I don't understand how Ianto coped without him, the way he looked when Jack arrived."

"He was terrified." Owen agreed, "I honestly think he expects to be rejected. That's Ianto though, isn't it? He thought Jack didn't want him, so he stayed away. Stupid git probably told himself it was because he was angry or hurt or something, but really he was just doing what he thought Jack wanted of him. He came as soon as he knew Jack did want him." He sighed and squeezed Tosh gently, "They'll be alright. We'll bash their heads together until they are."

She hummed happily and leaned into him further, "We'll set Gwen on them."

_"I heard that."_ She grumbled in their ears, _"Are you there yet?"_

"Just got to the garage now Gwen." Tosh told her as she stepped out of the lift and opened the first box, groaning as she saw the contents, "It's going to be a long few days guys."

They worked smoothly, grown experienced at this over the last few years. For over five years, the permanent Torchwood team had consisted only of Tosh and Owen, backed up by a specialist police squad led by Andy and any help they needed from UNIT and Jack on occasion. It was little wonder that they'd grown so close really. Gwen's return had unbalanced them slightly, but they'd settled back into the rhythm easily enough. Ianto had slipped back in as though he'd never been gone, his quiet efficiency as welcome and professional as it had ever been. "I'm going to miss this place." She muttered, turning an alien moneybox over in her hands.

Owen met her eyes when she looked up and smiled softly, "We've had a good run though, haven't we? And we can still come back to visit, say hello to Myfanwy."

_"And me."_

"Yes, and you Gwen." He pulled a face; he'd forgotten she was listening. "Hey, Gwen, once we leave we can baby-sit for you during the day whilst Rhys is out at work too. But we're definitely drawing the line at two."

"Oh yes." Tosh grinned, "Unless they pull a fast one on us."

"Couldn't happen twice in the same organisation, could it?" He pretended to faint in fear, "I love kids, but I couldn't eat a whole one."

Tosh bit her lip to keep the laughter down and looked back at her computer, "Sending you some more stuff through Gwen." They were using a teleport device developed from Sontaran technology by UNIT, which was now widely used between and within all officially recognised alien-hunting organisations. It was considerably easier than carrying stuff up and down in the lift.

_"Got it Tosh."_ Gwen sighed down the line, _"Seriously, why couldn't UNIT have made it easy for us?"_

"That would be because they're UNIT Gwen… And they know we've got Ianto back, and he's the best person for the job." Tosh pointed out, "The fact that he can't help is irrelevant, to them at least."

Owen looked into the box and checked on his clipboard, "We've only got one load left in this box, how about we finish this one and get some pizzas in for lunch, then we can switch around a bit or whatever, rather than leaving Gwen on her own all day."

_"I like that plan."_

Tosh brushed a stray strand of hair out of her eyes and nodded, "Yep, sounds like a good idea."

They finished off quickly and made their way down to an empty Hub. Gwen was sitting at her computer setting off a search, "What are you looking for?"

"Jack and Ianto, they've gone."

Owen covered her hand with his own and removed it from the mouse, pulling her away from the computer and propelling her towards the empty boardroom, "Leave them be Gwen, they need some time together. They'll be fine."

"But what if…"

"Gwen, can you honestly name one thing that those two can't deal with between them? This is the couple who used to use Weevil hunting as a courtship ritual." He pushed her slightly more firmly; "They will be fine, as long as we give them the time to deal with it."

"They're a pair of idiots." She grumbled as Tosh returned from the Tourist Office with the pizzas

"Yes, we know, they're men dear, what did you expect?" Tosh pointed out with a smile, earning herself a playful swat from Owen, "There's nothing we can do really."

"It just… grates, you know? Knowing that there's nothing we can do to help."

"We brought them back together Gwen." Owen pointed out as gently as he could, "From there, it's up to them."

"Hmmm." She grabbed a slice of pizza and waved it around, "But if they don't sort it, you have my permission to set me on them."

"Good good." Tosh laughed, "Let's hope for their sakes they don't need it."

"Hey!" Gwen grinned, "I resemble that remark."


	5. Chapter 5

Two men seemed to appear from nowhere and strolled through the market together with studied nonchalance, holding hands slightly too tightly for anyone looking at them not to know that something was wrong – not that their red-rimmed eyes didn't give it away anyway. But no one looked at them, not closely anyway, and they made their way to Jack's car in silence, getting in and driving off unnoticed by the merry crowds.

Sitting in the car with Jack using both hands to drive was the first time that they'd not been holding each other in some way since they'd been reunited. He wanted to cling on and never let go, to tell Jack that he wasn't going anywhere ever again, but he hadn't wanted to make promises that he could keep, couldn't break both their hearts again so soon, so he'd kept virtually silent, just whispering Jack's name in reply to his own.

Once the tears had stopped they'd escaped the Hub and risen on the invisible lift, holding onto each other more tightly that was perhaps necessary (not from where he was standing though) and passed through the unseeing crowds on their way to… Pendine Sands. He felt a laugh bubbling up inside him as he looked out across the wide, flat expanse and let it go, tilting his head back to catch the sun on more of his face. Right this moment, as Jack's delighted laugh joined his and strong arms wrapped around his waist and held him, everything was right with the world. They could do this, they could go on, they had a future.

They also had a past, and a lot of air than needed clearing, so Jack took his hand and picked up a picnic blanket, leading him down onto soft, dry sand where he spread out the blanket, which he tugged them both down onto. Ianto pre-empted him and pulled Jack into his arms. He sighed and settled in happily, taking one of Ianto's hands and lacing their fingers together.

"Where did you go?" He asked eventually, eyes fixed on their joined hands as he couldn't turn far enough to look up at Ianto

The young man sighed and leaned back slightly, gazing up at the sky, "Llanwrda to start with, stayed with old friends of mine and worked for them. Moved on from there when the tourist season finished, hopped around the UK really."

"Coffee shops?"

"Of course." They laughed, but Ianto sobered quickly and held tight to Jack, "I went to all the places I thought you wouldn't look for me. Starting in the Brecon Beacons was a fluke really, but I went to anywhere that was weird, Hebden Bridge, Scarborough, Hastings, and stayed in the places I couldn't even stand to think about for as long as I could. I spent two months working in Canary Wharf, serving people who worked in the tower. Never got out of coffee shops though."

"Oh Ianto." Jack had turned in his arms to look up at him, and now reached up to wipe tears from Ianto's face gently, pulling his friend – first and foremost he was a friend – against him so that they clung to each other again, "Oh Ianto." He repeated, choking on a sob as his own tears flowed unchecked once again, "Why, why did you go? I searched for you, I would never have stopped searching for you."

"I know. I know now." Ianto buried his face in Jack's shoulder, "But then… The first thing I remembered was Lisa, dying, and you threatening to shoot me, and hating you." There was so much anger and pain in Ianto's voice that Jack's heart broke again and he started shaking. Ianto held him tighter and whispered, "And it hurt so much, because I loved you, and I didn't know why. But I knew that you'd sent me away…"

"Oh Ianto." It was good to be able to say his name without being crushed by agony, but it was a bit repetitive now, "I am so, so sorry."

"I'm sorry." Ianto looked up, "I'm sorry I didn't trust you, I'm sorry I made you do it, I'm so sorry Jack. After everything, with everything I knew, I should have listened to you."

"It's past." Jack cradled him close and rocked him slightly, "It's past, I've got you, I've got you. Please, please never make me let go of you again, please."

"Jack…" He turned and reached up, pulling Jack down to meet him in a searing kiss, "I promise, that I will be here for as long as I can be, and I will fight anyone who tries to take me away."

Jack closed his eyes and kissed Ianto again once more, then pulled back and pulled his T-shirt off. He looked up at Ianto nervously and gestured at him, "Can I?" Ianto reached for his cuffs to undo them, but Jack's hands covered his own and moved them aside so that Jack could do it himself. He took it slowly, his hands trembling with the effort of restraining himself. Finally, he pushed the shirt off Ianto's shoulders and pulled them together, wrapping his arms around the lithe frame he'd missed so much and pulling back to lie on the warm sand with Ianto's head rested on his chest. He ran his fingers though soft, springy hair and nearly started crying again.

They lay there, basking in the sunlight and the feeling of skin touching skin again for a long time, just feeling each other and being together, being whole. Children screamed with laughter as they ran along the beach, trailing kites, chasing balls, burying each other in the sand, their parents either joining in the fun or trying their best to enjoy a relaxing afternoon. A ball bounced along the beach close to them and two small boys chased it, yelling at each other as they tried to decide who sent it out of the game. Jack laughed and Ianto felt it rumble through them both as they both relearned feeling which had once been so familiar, but had been for so long just part of a memory of a happier time.

"What about you?" Ianto asked at length, "Did you win?"

"What?"

"The people who were threatening you, did you win?"

Jack sighed and closed his eyes, holding tighter, "With a dashing hero like me on the case?" He shook his head, "Just. It was… it was terrifying, but it was easier knowing that you were safe. I… I can't…"

Ianto couldn't take the pain in Jack's voice. He shifted up so that they were level and kissed him into silence, "It's OK." He whispered when he pulled away again, now leaning over Jack and gazing down into his eyes, "I just need to know that you're safe. I should have asked earlier but…"

Jack brought a hand up and cupped his cheek, stroking it gently with his thumb, "Don't worry about me, I'll always be fine."

"I will always worry Jack, because I know. I know that being alive isn't the same as being fine."

He smiled and stretched up to kiss Ianto again, "Now I've got you with me again," he covered Ianto's heart with his hand, "I'm fine. I'm better then fine."

Ianto bit back the question of 'what about when I'm gone' and promised himself, promised any God who happened to be listening, that he would do everything he could to find a way to be there forever. He kissed Jack again, "I am so, so sorry I ran."

"Me too, oh God me too." Jack pulled Ianto down again and held him close, "Don't… don't…"

"I'm not going anywhere. I am right here." He pressed his forehead against Jack's shoulder, felt sobs wrack the body beneath him and kissed the bare skin lightly, "I'm not going anywhere."

The sun was deliciously warm, the sand was comfortable (Jack's chest was even more comfortable, Ianto thought), the sound of the sea and the seagulls was like something out of a holiday programme and, all in all, it wasn't all that surprising that, once they'd lapsed into a contented silence, both Jack and Ianto drifted off into the best sleep they'd had for six years. Of course, the sun was deliciously warm, Ianto had set off for a day wearing a shirt in a dark, damp, underground base and he was lying face down on… well, on top of Jack. He was extremely glad he'd kept his trousers and, especially, shoes on.

Jack opened his eyes slowly and closed them very rapidly when he realised that the sun had moved. He groaned and ran a hand though him hair, dislodging sand and feeling the tension and heat that said he'd got sunburnt. Gently, he shifted himself and Ianto, so that he could see how he'd fared. He winced in sympathy as Ianto woke with the movement and immediately grimaced. He turned over and groaned, rubbing the back of one of his arms, "I'm not very intelligent."

Jack sat up and turned Ianto slightly again, rubbing a comforting hand over his shoulder and grabbing their discarded shirts. He shook them out, spat out the sand he'd thrown into his face, and helped Ianto to pull his shirt back on, "Sorry Ianto, I should have thought of that. We need to get some after sun on your back pretty quickly."

"Yeah." He winced, "Ah well, you always were telling me to get more sun. I think I've just made up for the rest of my life."

After checking his own chest and shoulders, largely protected by Ianto, he pulled his T-shirt on and got to his feet, helping Ianto up after. They walked back to the car, hand in hand, and managed to laugh when Ianto had difficulty sitting down. Jack turned to him and took his hand, lacing their fingers together, "I missed you."

Ianto leant over and kissed him, pulling back to brush his fringe out of his eyes and gaze into them, "I missed you too, so much."

Two teenaged girls tittered as they walked past, so Jack flashed them a grin and started the car, turned the CD player on and pulled out of the car park. "Where are you living now, anyway?"

"My old apartment." Ianto admitted shyly, "You've been accessorising."

"Erm, yeah." Jack ran his hand through his hair in embarrassment, "I got you a new teapot yesterday too."

"A teapot?" Ianto blinked and grinned, "Only you, Jack, only you."

"I hope that's said with affection."

"Of course." His heart warmed at Jack's evident delight, but he still hesitated a moment, "I found your letters." Jack was silent; only a brief, concerned glance in Ianto's direction showing his emotions, "I… You've always been better with words than I am, they were beautiful."

"I meant it, every word."

"I know."

"I wrote most of them sitting in the middle of your bed. I…"

"You were crying when you wrote them." He was crying now, actually, but Ianto knew when to mention it and when not to. Now was a 'not' moment. "I've never hated myself more than I did when I read them. I'm so, so sorry I did that to you."

Jack gripped his hand tightly and held it until he needed to change gear again, then reclaimed it, "I don't blame you; I understand the, the reality of Retcon and recall. You weren't supposed to remember alone, that should never have happened. I should have listened, I should have respected your wishes."

"No, Jack." Ianto was not going to let Jack feel like the villain, "I should have listened to you. How many times did I complain about Gwen questioning or disobeying your orders?" He sighed, closed his eyes and flopped back into the seat, relishing the pain it caused, "I was stupid and blind and I messed everything up."

Jack squeezed his hand and brought him back to the present, "What were you blinded by?"

He didn't open his eyes, "Love. I loved you too much to let you face that alone."

"I know." Now he opened his eyes. Jack was watching him with such sadness, but such amazing love, as they waited at a set of roadworks, "And that's why I can understand, because I loved you too much to lose you to them." He sighed, "Instead, I nearly lost you to myself."

"Jack." Ianto whispered and almost kissed him again, but the lights changed and Jack had to turn his attention back to the road, so he brushed the back of Jack's hand where it rested on the gear lever instead, "Don't blame yourself, never blame yourself."

"I won't blame you for it." He insisted vehemently

"Then blame fate, blame the bastards who came after you, anyone but yourself. Jack, you've suffered too much already."

"That's what I'm here for Ianto," he sighed, "I can survive anything, so I will survive everything."

"No, Jack, it shouldn't be like that. You shouldn't be the world's Weeble." Ianto turned to watch him earnestly, trying to convince him with will power as much as his words.

"Weevil?"

"Weeble, it's one of those things that comes straight back up when you push it over. Like Mr Wobbly Man in Noddy." He explained, hoping that Jack could see the analogy

He could, "So just because I will bounce back when pushed over… You know, I've got all the Noddy books, first editions."

"Why?" Ianto choked on a laugh and ended up coughing, "I mean, not that Noddy's not a delight when you want to feel a bit… alive, I want ot say, but you know what I mean."

"Noddy's ace, I grew up with Noddy."

"No way!" His eyes were round

"Seriously," Jack grinned at him, "But 3D Noddy from a projector. I was so excited when the books came out. I bought 'Noddy Goes to Toytown' and read it to the team one evening when we were pulling an all-nighter and waiting for some results. They thought I'd gone mad."

"Noddy is made of win." Ianto stated seriously, "I always wanted to go to Toytown when I was a kid."

"One day, I'll try to take you." Jack suggested seriously with a smile, "It's a bit magical."

"Anywhere's magical with you Jack." Ianto whispered, but not loud enough for Jack to hear him. He didn't think they were quite ready for that much schmoop yet.

Jack, however, had better hearing that Ianto gave him credit for, and smiled.


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's Note:** Trying something very different this chapter, so feedback is adored. Please tell me if it works, if it doesn't, what I can improve on, what you think I'm doing lol. Anything that springs to mind. Reviews are much loved and extremely helpful. Grateful thanks to everyone who's reviewed so far, you absolutely make my day

* * *

Jack concentrated on worrying about Ianto's sunburn to prevent himself worrying about anything else as they walked into the apartment, Ianto walking stiffly and getting rid of his shirt as soon as they were indoors and the door was shut. Part of Jack reacted as he expected to that action, longing to get closer to Ianto, to hold him and devour him and have him, but the largest part of him winced as the angry redness showed up even better in the cool, white hallway. He ran a soothing hand over Ianto's shoulder and removed it hurriedly when he winced, despite Jack's gentleness. Ianto smiled over his shoulder apologetically and tensed his back again. "I need to get something on this."

"Yeah," Jack looked down at his legs and arms. "Me too, have you got any?"

"There's Sudocrem in the bathroom, probably some aftersun as well, I'll go have a look."

Jack shook his head and touched his hip lightly. "You go and lie face down somewhere, I'll find it. I can see you wincing every time you move."

The grateful smile made it even more worth it, especially when Ianto disappeared into the bedroom. True to Ianto's prediction, an out of date bottle of aftersun was under the sink, and the Sudocrem was in the mirrored cabinet above it. "Ianto, does aftersun go off?" He wandered back into the bedroom with one in each hand and dropped them on the bed, sitting down next to them and resting his hand on Ianto's arse: Not the most politic of places, but the one that was likely to hurt least.

Ianto blinked back at him and grabbed the bottle. "Only nine years, should be fine," He raised an eyebrow questioningly at the cloth in Jack's hand. "What?"

"It's cold," Jack warned him, kneeling up to get a better angle and touching it to his shoulder. "Told you so."

"Mmm," Ianto groaned. "It's good."

"I'll bet," Jack ran it across his shoulders and down across his back, tracing a line from his side to the small of his back. "You've got a handprint."

"I've what?"

"You've got a handprint, and an arm print actually. From where my arm was lying across you," Jack chuckled. "I've marked you."

"Funny," Ianto groaned. "This is going to be a bitch."

"You ever been sunburnt before?" Jack asked gently, running the cloth across his shoulders again.

"No, well, once, when I was five. On Pendine Sands, would you believe it?" He buried his face in the pillow, so his next words were muffled. "Apparently I cried."

Jack chuckled. He set the cloth aside and hesitated a moment, then bent down and kissed Ianto's shoulder lightly. "I am sorry about this."

Ianto rolled over slightly to look up at him. "I'm not." Nothing more seemed to be forthcoming, as he flopped back onto his stomach and groaned. The groan was rude.

"Language," Jack chided softly, momentarily mystified and completely unbothered by the fact. "I'll start with the Sudocrem, then do you with aftersun," He took the lid off the tub and sniffed it. "Sudocrem smells of babies."

"Babies smell of Sudocrem," Ianto corrected him. "At the coffee shop on the Bay, one of the girls who works for me has kids, another on the way. She always smells of Sudocrem."

"How's the coffee shop running going to work?"

Ianto resisted the urge to shrug. "I own it, they run it and report to me once a week. Eventually, I hope, they'll buy me out."

"You always wanted to run your own place," Jack commented.

"Yeah, but I've been working my way up for six years, and it wasn't what I expected."

"Why not?"

"It was lonely," His back muscles clenched as the cream finally touched it and he grabbed Jack's other hand and squeezed it. "I just wanted to come home."

Jack bent down and kissed his shoulder again, lingering slightly longer this time, then pulled away and started massaging the cool cream into Ianto's inflamed skin tenderly. "I'm glad you did."

"You've got the other three to thank for that," he sighed and arched involuntarily into Jack's hands. "I must have been coming home already, subconsciously, but they found me."

"I owe them a drink," Jack chuckled, but it sounded strained. "I've never hated anyone as much as I did Ynylenes when I couldn't find you."

He didn't turn. "What happened?"

Jack closed his eyes and took a deep breath, his hands stilling on Ianto's sides.

* * *

"Ynylenes and I, we go way back. Further back than John and I even. She was the one who got me through that first war, the one where everything went wrong. My best friend and I ran away together to fight for our world. We wanted to make a difference, to do something more than sit around at home and wait for the soldiers to come back, those that did. It was, I guess it was an old fashioned war. Soldiers, ground level fighting. Guns and barbed wire and street barricades. The capital city, one of the most beautiful cities in the galaxy, was reduced to something out of a post-Apocalyptic wargame; it was so… exciting. My friend, Sam his name was, his dads were both fighting in the war, both went into the city, only one came out. His dad, Michael, wasn't allowed to go back in, he was sent home to recover or something. So Sam decided that he was going to go and rescue Lai, and I followed him.

I was smitten, puppy love I guess. That's what everyone thought, what adults through the ages have thought when two kids fall in love, or think they've fallen in love. I've seen both true love and puppy love at that age, but it didn't matter for me, because Sam was one hundred percent straight. He was gorgeous though. Sandy hair, gorgeous smile, and the most incredible eyelashes. Yeah, I was sunk, I'd have followed him through the gates of Hell. I guess I did in a way.

It was easy to get into the city, once you'd snuck past the army. It was just there, like getting into any city, one minute you're in countryside, then you're in suburbia, then there you are in the city centre. We walked around for days, just lost in the vast size of it, the devastation. It was like the war had happened and passed on, leaving no survivors. Nature was claiming it back, so grass grew through the pavements, vines crept up the sides of office blocks, twining through the spaces where glass windows had been. We saw desert foxes occasionally, even though there was nothing there for them. There was nothing there for us.

"We're going to die here, aren't we?" he asked me one night. We were hiding out in a penthouse apartment, or what had once been a penthouse apartment. The structure had held, and it was so dry that the furniture was pretty much okay too. It had brought back to us exactly how long this war had been going – just a few years. Nature had tricked us into believing that it had been longer.

I didn't answer, just hid from the truth in a book. He didn't really want an answer anyway; we hadn't found food for about two days. Hopefully the next place we tried would have some tins, or something that didn't go off in the heat. Preferably tins though, we could take those with us easily. It had seemed like such a good idea, get to the city, find Lai, get out.

Actually, it seemed like a stupid idea from the start. Unlike Sam, I'd seen pictures of the city. It could have swallowed the Peninsular whole. Imagine trying to find someone in a city the size of London, when there were no people there and you're fifteen years old. Now double London and add an entire underground city on underneath and make it London in the aftermath of a World War Two Blitz and you've got two frightened children.

I was terrified, I wanted to go home, but I didn't want Sam to think I'd failed him, so I carried on. I was thick, really.

The next day, we got up early, we needed food so it seemed like a good idea, and set off again. We went through all the apartments in that block and struck gold. Well, fish actually. Loads of tinned fish, and some meat too, and some stuff that was like sweetcorn but wasn't. We found a bowl and two spoons and mixed two tins of the fish with two tins of the sweetcorn stuff and sat on the floor with our backs against the cupboards to eat it. There were tins of dog food in there too, but we weren't hungry enough to eat those.

We packed up as much of the food as we could carry, we had to go back for a can opener, and set off again, just walking through the streets looking for anything that seemed promising. Off towards the coast, we could hear fighting, evidently two incursions had met. We had to avoid both; because our army would either shoot on sight or send us home and the other side would either shoot on sight or capture us and eventually execute us.

Some of the shops had smashed windows and had clearly been looted, others were untouched. The shops that had been looted tended to be food shops, computer shops, outdoor equipment suppliers. Stuff that might be useful. Clothes shops were mainly untouched, same with anywhere that sold just fresh food. People had been looking for stuff to help them survive.

Sam and I got into an outdoor equipment shop that still had enough bits to help us. We got a couple of sleeping bags (no more snuggling at night, there went one of the few upsides of our situation), bigger bags for carrying stuff, a stove, some solid walking sandals, pen knives… Anything we thought might come in useful really. Then, once we'd packed it all up into our new bags and hidden our old stuff as well as we could, we headed off again, to find an apartment to spend the night in.

We chose another penthouse. Top floor, fantastic views. We could see right across to the Boeshane Peninsular, where my mum and his dad would surely be so proud of us. There would be two candles in Michael's window, one in my mum's, guiding us home. That was the thought that soothed us as we stared out in that direction, just able to make out the blot of the last city, Jikalu, and beyond that the light of the sunset glimmering on the sea. We talked long into the night about what we would do, how much longer it would be until we could head home with Lai. The apartment was the highest in the city, it afforded the best views and there was even food there, and a water collection unit on the balcony. We were safe there; we could afford to hang around for a couple of days at least.

That was where they found us two nights later.


	7. Chapter 7

There was a snap as Jack replaced the lid on the tub of Sudocrem, then another as he removed it again. He shifted around and took Ianto's hand again, pulling on it. "Sit up for me?"

He complied, watching Jack in concern as he took his hands and turned his arms. "Life's been dealing you shit from the start, hasn't it?"

"Yeah, I guess it has," he shrugged. "I need to do your arms too, and your face."

Ianto raised a hand to touch his cheek lightly. "Your face in worse."

"I heal quickly," Jack started rubbing the cream into the back of Ianto's arm, turning it gently to get better access. He was startled when Ianto's hand returned to his cheek and tilted his head up and soft lips pressed against his own. His eyes flickered closed and he sighed into it. "And this makes it worth it," He opened his eyes again and smiled at Ianto, then returned his attention to his arm. "I'm okay."

"So what happened, who was it found you?"

The movement of his hands slowed and he didn't raise his eyes as he held his hand out for Ianto's other arm. "It was enemy resistance fighters," he replied eventually. "Some were soldiers who'd got separated from their forces, some were kids like us, some were independent fighters who hadn't wanted to take orders. They were ruthless; they had more at stake than anyone else. They were the real front line. I guess we were too, in a way.

They let us sleep, found us late at night and waited until we woke up the next morning. I opened my eyes, turned over and there was this girl looking at me, two guns, one pointed at me and one at Sam. He was already watching me with a look that just said, "Oh shit".

"Who are you?" I asked. I was always grumpy first thing in the morning, I got better at it with time, and if it weren't for the gun pointing at Sam I would have just turned over and gone back to sleep.

She ignored me, something that would come to be extremely familiar. "Afgat?"

At her call, a tall, dark haired man appeared in the doorway and studied us. He scared me from that very first moment, he was imposing and angry. We were moved from the apartment, once they'd raided it, and taken down to the street, then they made us walk miles back to an old school building they were using as a base. It was built in a particularly sterile period, glass and white concrete, big open spaces and an upper floor where the staff had offices and walkways to watch over the kids. Now, higher-level resistance people were using the upper floor, and the classrooms were being used for sleeping, eating… and torture.

They showed us round the place, nice and friendly, introduced us to people, showed us the kit they'd got. It was cool, we felt safe, we felt like we were in the centre of the war and doing something useful. Then we found out which side had got us. The last room they showed us had been the changing rooms, and even we could tell what was going to happen in there.

We fought when they grabbed us properly; kicked, punched, screamed, even bit, anything to get free. I managed it, but all I did was hurl myself on the guy who had Sam. That decided it for them. They restrained me, strapped me to a chair, and made me watch whilst they tortured him.

When he couldn't take any more, they moved on to me. They thought we were holding out on them, but we just didn't know anything. As soon as Sam was strong enough again, they went back to him. I knew it couldn't last, I knew he couldn't last.

They weren't talented torturers. They were rough, brutal, intent on causing pain. But they knew what they were doing psychologically. They knew that hearing him in pain hurt me more than anything else they could do.

I thought we were going to die. Then salvation came. There was shooting, loud bangs and crashes. They came in there to kill us, but there was Lai in the doorway like an avenging angel. He didn't even know they had us until that moment. I thought all my prayers had come true. He just looked at us, then at them and said, really quietly, "That's my son. So I suggest you don't."

They looked at each other and raised their weapons. And I kicked the one closest to me right where it hurt. Lai dropped the other with a bullet to the head and mine; well he was a bit distracted. Lai managed to get his weapon from him and clobbered him with it, then got to releasing me and Sam.

Whilst I rubbed the life back into my arms, Sam died in Lai's."

Ianto pulled Jack into his arms and crushed him close. "I've got you Jack. I've got you." He was shaking, silent tears pouring down his cheeks, and he held on to Ianto tightly. Ianto reached for the pot of Sudocrem and started rubbing it gently into Jack's arm, massaging from his fingers up to his shoulder. Jack moved when he pushed slightly to give him better access to his chest. "Did Lai know?"

Jack closed his eyes and breathed deeply. "Did he know how I felt about Sam? Yeah, he did. He didn't blame me for what happened. He said, 'Nothing you could have said would have stopped him, so instead you followed him. No-one could ask for more.' He didn't know. Before he went missing, I'd been talking about the war, about how I wanted to go and make a difference, about how it would be an experience. Sam always laughed me off, but he was proud you know? Because I was saying that his dads were out there being heroes and doing what I wanted to do. Then word came back that Lai had been lost and… he took everything I'd said and believed me. He had to save him. It was my fault.

I heard later, years later, that Lai and Michael rowed for a year and eventually split up over it, because Michael blamed Lai for Sam's death. But they couldn't stay apart. After twenty years together, then one year of rowing, Michael lasted six months before he couldn't take it any more. Tried to take his own life. Lai was there when he woke up in hospital and, to the best of my knowledge, they stayed together for the rest of their lives. Gave me faith at a time when I needed it.

I couldn't go home, I'd burned my bridges there and it just hadn't been the same since we lost my dad and my little brother. This was my chance to make a difference, to protect other people from suffering what we had, so I went with the fighters back to their base – another school – and stayed there when Michael took Sam home. Sent him with a message for my mother and begged him to stop anyone else doing what we had. That's what I always liked about Michael, he respected me. No one else did.

No one until Ynylenes that is. She was the real dark angel of the resistance; a beautiful creature, strangely ethereal for all her toughness. An ice maiden, so cold she burned, so beautiful you couldn't look away and so brittle that you felt she'd break on the slightest impact. She didn't of course, the ice was diamond and we were all scared witless of her. Ynylenes worked alone.

And then I showed up, all bitter and angry and twisted and oh so vulnerable and impressionable that she just couldn't resist. It was the fact that everyone knew that I'd loved Sam that really swung it for her though. We appeared to swing away from each other, not towards each other. She wasn't going to have a horny teenager lusting after her, especially when I was grieving and mired in self-loathing. Boy was she wrong, but I never let her know it.

She taught me to move without being seen, to be without being noticed, to shoot, to conceal myself, to torture. She taught me to be a ghost who killed people. By the time I was eighteen the war was over, they had pulled back and left the planet. I was a mess; in over my head on drink, drugs and sex as the city started to come back to life. Most of my bed partners died. Another thing I learnt from her. She was a black widow, but only because she liked to kill men. Otherwise she would have been a lifestyle lesbian, she thought all men were bastards and deserved to be shot.

I remember the day the council took their seats in the Hall of Justice again. It didn't have a roof, the windows were all smashed, they'd just cleared the glass off the seats and marched in there, sat down and the council was in session. I was so proud. We sat on the roof of a nearby apartment, looking in and felt like Gods. I was drunk, or stoned – it was hard to tell. People had returned and brought more drugs and more alcohol with them, and it was killing me. She didn't care, didn't try to stop me. Just watched me self destruct and, I guess, trusted me to pull myself through. That night, a Time Agent approached us on the roof, wanted to hire us both into the agency. Said they could use our skills. She said, 'send a woman' and shot him in the shoulder. Didn't even turn.

I told him, 'get out of here, or she'll put one in the other shoulder.' Then I stood up, picked my stuff up and just said, 'and take me with you, before she does it to me'.

His name was Captain David Rislaw, and he was a reconnaissance and intelligence officer for the Agency. The way it worked was that, once you made officer, you recruited your own squad of five men and women, took them through training, and then led them. Ynylenes and I were supposed to be his number five and six (he was number one) but he stuck with four. Said I was worth two already, once I'd patched up his shoulder on the move.

David was the one who saved me, the one who shook me from a drugged stupor and kicked the bastards who wanted my body whenever he had to drag me from a bar, which was often. He was the one who finally got through the tough exterior, the one who took the time to find out why I was trying to kill myself, the one who stuck his fingers down my throat when I tried to overdose and walked in just in time to snatch the knife from me. He was the one who held me that night when I finally cracked and poured out all my pain, my bitterness, the one who washed away the layers of grime I'd built up around my past so that I could look back at it, at myself, without wanting to kill either myself or the world or both. He was the one who showed me that sex could be good, that it wasn't about masochism and pain but it could still make me feel good.

Eventually, I loved him. I knew it wasn't forever, even when the two of us split the group so the others joined groups they were better suited to and we left to do frontier excursions together, pushing the boundaries and blending in as best we could, even then I knew that we wouldn't last. Sure enough, he decided he wanted to be a rock star in the 1960s. He stayed there and I moved on, went back to the agency for a new mission and there he was, waiting for me. Ynylenes's latest prodigy, my first solo mission. Out of his mind on drugs and alcohol, throwing himself into violent sex for the pain it caused more than any release. They knew that I'd been there and that I'd come through it as a damned good agent, so they trusted me to take care of him.

So I did, but I did it my way, not David's. I showed him the wonders of the universe, kept him clean, showed him how to enjoy himself without causing damage, showed him that you can live without the drugs and the alcohol, and that a steady relationship can be rewarding. I never meant him to think it could last, it was never meant to be forever. That was made abundantly clear when we were trapped in a time lock for five years. God I hated him by the time we got out, the sex never made up for the bitterness. By the time we got out I'd served my contract and was going to quit if they wouldn't let me have a new partner.

Next thing I know it's two years later and I'm back in bed with him, and Ynylenes. I ran as fast and as far as I could, and I guess I was still running when I died in the year 200100, at which point my problems got a whole lot more surreal."


	8. Chapter 8

Ianto rubbed the aftersun between his hands to warm it up a bit and fitted his hand into the void on Jack's chest. "I'm guessing I could put a name to your partner."

"Yeah. Yeah, I think you probably could," He leaned into the touch when Ianto raised a hand to his cheek. "I don't know what went wrong in those two years, but the first thing I remember I was fighting addiction myself, took me a while to remember why I was doing it actually."

"What reminded you?"

Jack buried his face against Ianto's neck. "You ask all the right questions. It was Michael and Lai, I went home for a while, just a couple of weeks. I was stationed over there whilst my contract cleared. Wasn't looking for them, just bumped into them and went for a drink. They told me what had happened, how they'd fought and got back together. I guess…" He pulled back and took the aftersun from Ianto, taking the arm with it and massaging it like Ianto had done for him. "I'm not proud of who I was in the past. Running away didn't solve my problems, it just created new ones. I got clean, went rogue and became a con man and the rest you know.

Fast forwards far too many years and John showed up here on a con, and I sent him packing. Then I got a message from him, several in fact, but I kept ignoring them, until I gave in to the fact that the only way to get rid of him would be to meet him.

He chose the bar again, so by the time I arrived he'd already started drinking – heavily. It scared me, seeing him that quiet, just drinking like he wanted to drown in it. Of course I'd seen him like that before, but not for a very, very long time. I got a water and joined him at the table. He passed me the vodka bottle and told me that Ynylenes had been convicted of war crimes. I drank.

In the aftermath of the war, the two councils had slogged out a peace deal. Part of the deal concerned the decommissioning of the two armies and their uniting. The renegades from the city were given two options: accept offers from the army or face trial for their actions. Lai was covered by the army, I had signed up with the agency, Ynylenes rejected their offers. She went underground and then disappeared completely; she killed a Time Agent and used his wrist-manipulator to escape. In her absence, they used my account of the events, which I'd given to the agency when I signed up, as evidence against her. They wanted both her crimes and mine to be accounted for, so she was convicted of all of them. Between us we had killed hundreds; she was made into an example and was sentenced to fifty years in a time lock, and then death.

And she blamed me. My evidence had been the clincher; I had been the one to list all her victims - the ones I knew about anyway. John heard about her conviction and went to help her, he told her that he'd seen me now and that I would help. That was all she wanted to know. As soon as he realised what she wanted, he tried to stop her and she tried to kill him. He escaped her and ran here to warn me. She wanted to destroy me, but she knew that I couldn't die. And she knew about you. I… Her plan was to come here and imprison me, so that you would come to rescue me, then torture and kill you one by one. I couldn't allow that to happen, not when I know her abilities.

So I hid you all. The rest of the team were first, they all agreed to it. Rhys came and took Gwen; Harwoods were looking to expand with another office in Bristol, so they moved away and Gwen removed all her memories of Torchwood. UNIT took Tosh, relocated her to Tokyo where she updated their computer system – they'd been trying to borrow her for years, and she wanted to work on it – but again, she removed all memories of Torchwood. Owen was borrowed by Liberty Towers. Both of them had someone I trusted watching them, in case their work triggered the recall and I couldn't be there to look after them.

And then it came to the moment where I had to let go of you. You didn't make it easy, of course. I wanted nothing more than to let you stay with me, to have you by my side to face her; but I couldn't see you die like that, it would have killed me. I slipped you the retcon, planted fake memories and held on to you until John came and almost dragged me away from you. Knowing it was for the best didn't stop me hating him for it.

We went back in time, to that first war where I met her, and we split up to wait for her. We didn't have long to wait. After a week, during which time I'd actually managed to get myself shot by my younger self, I got a message saying that John had been captured.

I knew that city like the back of my hand, even after all that time. As soon as I knew where he was I made my way there through the undercity. If you've ever seen pictures of Cairo's Old City, the undercity was like that, but on so many different levels. Like a city built of lego bricks, intertwining with spaces and connections and wonderful corners that were so perfect for hiding in. Where the upper city had been a glorious shoot out, the undercity had been something else entirely. This was Ynylene's domain really, but I could track my way through there well enough that she'd never see me coming. Of course, my domain was the rooftops, but I really didn't want to shoot myself again, and I could do without realising at that age that I would be able to shoot myself twice.

I'd forgotten how much fun it was down there. Even with all my attention focussed on getting there, getting John out and getting Ynylenes locked away, it was impossible not to enjoy the rush of adrenaline and insanity as I climbed up access ladders, swung across open spaces, ran across roofs and bolted through empty buildings. It was exhilarating.

Tracking John was easy. He was in an old warehouse on the bottom side of the city, below where I'd ever got to before. It took me a while to get in there, not having done it before, and the crazy bitch had tagged all the doors, so I couldn't get in that way without alerting her. Down here though, all the buildings shared electrical conduits, which, were the city functional, would have been lethal, full of charging power. With the city dead, however, the conduits were perfectly sized for a skinny teenager to crawl through. I was not a skinny teenager any more and got a bit stuck occasionally.

Warehouses, it's always warehouses. Big, open spaces filled with shelving and boxes. In here, the boxes were full of children's toys. I decided I was going to get you a teddy, but then that seemed a bit weird. And then I found John. Ynylenes had realised that he had warned me. I nearly threw up.

That was probably her intention, I realised, as a bullet – an actual bullet – slammed into my skull. Of course, I thought about this fact a lot more when I woke up tied to a shelving unit some time later. I was so scared, not for me, but scared that she would move on before anyone could catch her and more people would die. That you would die.

But they came in time; they used the power conduits like I had. One of them actually dropped on her suddenly from above to stun her and prevent her escaping. And," he swallowed and looked away even further, his gaze going from where their hands joined between them to the quilt beside them. "They had sent for David, dragged him out of retirement to help me. He thought I was dead, I… I hadn't seen him for so long, when I came back to life in his arms…" he shook his head and the movement sent tears sparkling away.

"Jack, you don't have to feel guilty if you slept…"

"I didn't," Jack tensed and pulled one of his hands back to scrub it across his face, chancing a glance up at Ianto but not for long enough to read him. "I didn't sleep with him. I haven't slept with anyone else since before I ran off, you…"

"I believe you, I'm sorry I assumed, Jack. But I don't understand what you're trying to tell me, I'm trying to make it easier for you." Ianto willed him to understand.

He nodded, looking back at their hands again now, which Ianto considered an improvement. "I… No, he took me back to the Boeshane Peninsular, we stayed with Michael and Lai and they took care of me until I was ready to come home and start… just start, again. For Earth I was only gone three days."

"How long was it for you?"

"Months, a few months," Jack's grip on his hands tightened. "That's all."

"Jack. Jack, look at me," his tone was soft, but he freed one hand to lift Jack's chin and hold him in place gently. "Jack, what happened to you? She tortured you, didn't she?"

Jack closed his eyes as fresh tears spilled and he nodded, turning his face into Ianto's hand, seeking the comfort so willingly given. "Yes, for two weeks."

"Oh, Jack," Ianto pulled him closer gently, almost warily, as if he were a spooked animal or a small child. The way he curled into Ianto's arms and held on for dear life only reinforced the image. "I've got you, I'll keep you safe," he promised, pressing kisses and whispers into Jack's hair. "You haven't told anyone, haven't had anyone to talk to, have you?" He asked softly, feeling like a bastard.

"I didn't want anyone," Jack confirmed his suspicions. "I just wanted to find you, I just wanted to come home."

"Hey hey, you're alright, you're home now," he shifted, not letting go for a moment, and got them both lying down with Jack's head on his chest, tears falling onto it and either standing like jewels on his sunburnt skin or running off it and down to the bed. The pressure of Jack's weight was painful, and he assumed it must be the same for Jack, but the contact was too important to them both. "I've got you, sleep now Jack. I'll hold you, I'll be here when you wake up."

"Promise?" Jack had never sounded more lost and childlike, and it nearly broke his heart again.

"I promise, I'll always be here." But he was talking to himself, Jack was already deeply asleep.


	9. Chapter 9

_I clear the second room and study a teddy for a moment. It's a desert fox, with soft fur and dark eyes and I'm struck by a sudden desire to take it home with me for Ianto. He'd secretly love it, like all the silly little things I've got him over the last few years, cute but not cutesy. Just things. I turn wistful and sad, as I remind myself that the chances of him ever letting me get close enough to give it to him are slim to non-existent and the pain of our… parting wells up in me again._

_I set the teddy back where it came from, drawing my gun and preparing to do the next room. The stench of blood hits me like a physical entity and I have to bite back the gag reflex. I sweep the room from where I stand, then edge forwards to the work table that has been dragged into the centre of the room and the figure stretched out on it. There is so much blood – too much – and I know without a shadow of a doubt that he is dead. The grief that hits me is almost astonishing, and definitely bordering on too much to bear._

_Still, I force myself to check, to be certain. No one could have survived those injuries, the brutal, sadistic, systematic torture that inflicted them. The gag reflex is stronger this time and I have to turn away. I feel pain flare briefly, and then death claims me once again._

_When I gasp that first breath, I find that I am restrained to something. I struggle against the bonds and feel them come loose slightly, so I struggle further. Suddenly, I am free, and I fall to the floor…_

Awareness rose to meet him with the floor and Jack's eyes flew open. He took deep, gasping breaths as the room came back into focus and whimpered as the last vestiges of the nightmare twisted with the very real image of Ianto clutching his jaw with a look of concerned sadness before they fled entirely.

"Jack?" when he didn't move, Ianto slid off the bed and padded around it, slowing to approach Jack cautiously and sit down beside him. Their breaths synchronised gradually as Jack let go of his fear and finally took a deep breath, burying his face in his hands for a moment. When he dropped them he had relaxed visibly and was smiling sheepishly, although his eyes were bright with tears.

He reached out and pulled Ianto into a hug, revelling in the warmth and comfort of the familiar figure back in his arms. When Ianto snuggled closer and rested his head against his chest, Jack encircled him with his arms and kissed his temple lightly, "I'm glad you're safe."

Ianto squirmed slightly to look up at him, "I'm glad we're safe." He slid his fingers down Jack's side lightly until they could play with the waistband of his shorts, "Do you have nightmares often?"

"What?"

"You had a nightmare, just now," Ianto frowned, "I can tell you know. When you…"

Jack stopped him with a finger softly over his lips, "I'm not evading. I just… forget them I guess."

"Really?" The concern in his eyes faded slightly and amusement lit gently, "Then how, perchance, did you think you came to end up on the floor?"

"I thought…" as Ianto turned to look up at him he caught sight of the bruise developing on his jaw, "I hit you."

Ianto rubbed his jaw again with a wry smile, "Even asleep you've got one Hell of a hook."

"I'm sorry, Ianto." He touched the bruise lightly

He shook his head fondly and rested his forehead against Jack's shoulder when the gentle touch fell away, "You were asleep," he kissed the bare shoulder, "it's not your fault."

"I should have better control."

"Jack…" Ianto growled in frustration, "Oh, let's go back to bed."

Jack laughed and pulled Ianto into his lap, picking them both up with a grunt of effort and a startled squeak from Ianto, "Mr. Jones, are you propositioning me?"

He looped his arms around Jack's neck and bit his lip, "Do you want me to?"

Jack drew in a sharp breath and nearly dropped him, "Oh God, you have no idea how much."

"Then, I guess, I am." Ianto closed his eyes and hoped, breathing a sigh of relief when Jack started moving again and set him down on the bed. He opened his eyes and had to look up to where Jack was gazing down at him, "Jack?"

"Do you want this? Really, Ianto, because I want you so much I don't think I could stop."

Ianto knelt up and rested his hands on Jack's shoulders, sliding them around to hold the back of his neck and pull him forwards, "Jack," their lips were so close now that Jack could almost feel him speaking, could definitely feel his breath against his own lips, "I need you."

The words hung in the air between them for a few heartbeats, and then Ianto pulled Jack even closer and pressed their lips together. Jack groaned against his lips and ran his hands up Ianto's sides and around his back, one hand sliding up to play with the soft hairs at the back of his neck – slightly longer than they had been once – and the other sliding around to pull him even closer as he climbed onto the bed, kneeling up so that their thighs upwards were pressed together.

Their hands roamed each other's bodies, holding, stroking, tracing lines of firm muscle that were so familiar it was like they'd never been apart and yet brought tears to both their eyes. Ianto traced Jack's lips with the tip of his tongue and slipped it into his mouth when Jack gave him entry. They danced together, tasting probing, feeling and loving until the need for breath became too great and Ianto broke away to trail kisses down. He reached Jack's chest and gave into the insistent tugs pulling him up so that Jack could kiss him thoroughly again, "I love you," he whispered.

Ianto held his breath and felt his heart skip a beat when Jack pulled away slightly, but Jack was looking at him with hope, affection and something between surprise and total amazement, "Still? After… after everything, and all this time?"

"Always, I…" he was silenced by Jack's lips soft on his own, and Jack's grip was even tighter. When he pulled back again, the tears that had been threatening were spilling over. He raised his fingers to brush them away gently, "Jack?"

Jack caught his hand and kissed each finger, the palm and the inside of his wrist before he could speak again, "I never believed that you could care for me again after what I did. Let alone…"

"Jack, what you did was risk everything to keep me safe. How could I not love you for that?"

"Ianto Jones, I love you." He laughed through his tears and pulled Ianto close again, kissing his forehead, his lips, his eyelids, anywhere he could reach. Between each kiss he whispered again, over and over, "I love you," and felt Ianto reply in kind.

Hands fumbled with belts, tugged at clothes and underwear, felt for sensitive places that made the other gasp and writhe, reached for lubricants, laced together. Jack's fingers went to work, opening and preparing Ianto, twisting in deeper to find that particular spot that made Ianto scream and come completely undone. He smiled against Ianto's skin as the younger man soared and landed safely back in his arms again.

Ianto reached up again to cup Jack's face and pull him down for another kiss, "No one could ever compare to you, you know that, right?" he finally asked.

"You're a hard act to follow too." Jack kissed him again and held him close

"Jack, I need you to make me yours." He stroked the side of Jack's neck, the tip of his thumb finding a spot right under Jack's ear that made him shudder and kiss Ianto senseless. Separated for those years, they had almost forgotten how good it felt when they were together, when their blood was pounding and every touch was a world of sensation and emotion and the stars seemed closer than they were from the TARDIS. Together again, they flew through the night.

"Second star on the right and straight on 'til morning."

Ianto hummed in agreement and settled his head on Jack's chest, taking his hand and lacing their fingers together again, "We can fly."

"I'll start singing..." But this time Ianto was the one asleep before the sentence was finished.

* * *

Jack towelled his hair dry as he walked back to the bedroom and paused, leaning against the doorframe and watching his lover sleeping peacefully, flat out on his front. He ran the towel over his hair once more and flicked it out of his eyes with his free hand whilst he hung the towel over the rail again, then padded forwards to stand at the side of the bed and look down at his relaxed expression, still swollen lips... He crawled onto the bed and paused to make sure that the movement hadn't woken Ianto, then crawled further forwards and kissed him lightly; feather light touches down his cheek to his lips. Ianto woke slowly, turning and reaching for Jack and pulling him down and against him before he opened his eyes and blinked up at him dozily, "Still watching me whilst I sleep?"

"Don't want to miss a moment." Jack traced his lips with a finger and gave a startled moan when Ianto sucked it suddenly into his mouth.

Ianto took hold of his hand as he released the finger and grinned wickedly, but with huge affection and love, "You're sweet."

Jack groaned, pushed him back on the bed and dipped his head to bite his neck gently, but hard enough to leave a mark, "I used to be a creep, and you used to be innocent. What happened?"

"Am I not innocent anymore?" Ianto did his best wide-eyed look – the blown pupils ruined the effect somewhat.

Jack didn't bother answering, not verbally at least. Ianto really, really didn't mind. Maybe they'd be late to work... Compared to six years late, who was counting?


	10. Chapter 10

Ianto looked around the chest of drawers for his tie. His clothes had all turned up in strange places this morning – trousers over the lamp, waistcoat folded and placed on a shelf of the bookcase – and he had a sneaking suspicion that he knew who was responsible. The suspect's arms slid around his waist from behind and pulled him away from the drawers, a tie dangling from one hand against his hip, and back against a firm chest, "Looking for this?"

He smiled and lifted Jack's hand by the tie, "How did you know?"

Jack chuckled and pulled his hand back then Ianto tried to take the tie off him, "Let me." He put the tie in his pocket and turned Ianto to face the mirror, fastening the buttons of his shirt before he turned him round to face him and slipped the tie around his neck, tying a neat Windsor knot, "There, waistcoat?"

"Thank you." Ianto smiled and kissed him briefly, then pulled his waistcoat on and fastened it up, looking at Jack through his lashes, "You ready?" He meant more than just Jack's attire and work necessities.

He understood, "I'm ready."

Ianto's car was still at the Hub from the day before, so they took the Jag in again with the roof up – they'd had quite enough of the sun for a while, and the wind obstructed conversation. They had a lot to talk about.

"So what have the last six years brought you, apart from coffee and most of the United Kingdom?" Jack looked across and smiled at him.

Ianto smiled back at him, sighed and closed his eyes, "I've got another nephew, called Gethin, who's just gone four. One Goddaughter called Anna-Louise who is the brightest little thing I've ever seen. She's coming up two. My cousin's got married and divorced again – and when I say 'again', this is divorce number three." He played with his cuff, "My mum died, nearly a year ago. Cancer."

Jack reached across and took his hand, rubbing his thumb across the knuckles, "I'm sorry." He'd never met Morg (Morgana, but not if you wanted her to like you), but he knew that Ianto was extremely fond of her and that they were extremely close.

"Yeah," He looked down at his hand in Jack's and turned it over to squeeze back, "She's back with Tad."

"You believe that?"

Jack was watching the road still, and he'd had to take his hand back to change gear – it had created distance between them again. Ianto frowned, "She did, that's enough for me."

"Hey," Jack smiled at his warmly and squeezed his hand again briefly before he had to change gear again, "it's good, you won't hear a word against it from me."

"But, with aliens and other worlds and big balls of gas, where could Heaven fit into that?"

The immortal shrugged, "I've seen so many things, wonderful and terrible things, I could never say that something doesn't exist. If it gives someone hope, if it can give me hope, then I'll have a go at believing in it."

"Does it give you hope?"

Jack was silent, thinking about the times when he'd lost someone and the only thing that had shed a light in the darkness was the hope that they'd gone somewhere better, the times when they'd risked their lives and he entrusted them to someone who could watch over them better than he could, the times when he'd come back from the dead and despaired until he persuaded himself that it was part of something bigger. He quirked a smile, "Yeah, it does."

"Good." They pulled into the underground carpark and got out of the car in companionable silence, checking for any spectators before they opened the secret door and got into the lift. "The team will be glad to have you back, as well" he amended with a soft smile, stepping into Jack's arms as the lift descended, "it's not been the same without you."

"It wasn't the same without you, either." Jack held onto him and swayed slightly, "It's why I couldn't stay. We should get lift music in here."

"James Blunt first thing in the morning? Joyous." Ianto smirked at Jack's reflection.

"We could have good lift music."

"Define 'good'?"

Jack tapped a finger on his jaw as he feigned deep thought, "Led Zeppelin?" Ianto raised an eyebrow,

"Stairway to Heaven."

"That I could cope with," he grinned, "I'll get on it."

They arrived at the bottom, "Might have to slow the lift down so that we get to hear the whole song."

"Oh yes," Ianto pushed the button and followed Jack out into the Hub, "I can see that working. Aliens take over Newport because the lift took 8 minutes so that we could hear the whole of Stairway."

"It's be worse if I insisted on the whole album," Jack laughed.

"How many of them have you slept with then?" Ianto tossed over his shoulder as he headed down the stairs to the coffee machine.

Jack bellowed with laughter, "Only Sandy Denny, I promise," he looked around, "now is it just me or is it quiet in here?"

"They're late in," Ianto agreed, "must have pulled a late one. We've probably got an hour or so."

"Oh yeah?" Jack sidled up behind him and squeezed him, "Whatever are we going to do with ourselves for an hour then?"

"I have an idea," Ianto passed him a mug of coffee – his blue and white striped mug – and smiled at the look of pure bliss and resolved longing on Jack's face, "we could do some filing." Jack's face fell slightly and he laughed, "Or we could reset the lift before they get in."

"Or we could go down to my bunker?"

"Later." Ianto promised, pulling Jack into a coffee flavoured kiss, "But now I want to play with the lift."

"Lift sex?" Jack looked hopeful, Ianto laughed and picked up his MP3 player and a hand-held computer, whilst Jack grabbed a screwdriver and followed him.

They laughed a lot as they worked, singing along as they played tunes through the lift's sound systems (it already had speakers wired in, which saved them a lot of work). In the end, they put a selection of songs on the system, so that it played a random piece of music whenever the lift started up.

Once they finished, Jack headed up to his office, whilst Ianto headed for the coffee machine. Jack appeared to take a deep breath before stepping into the room and sitting down at his desk; Ianto smiled to himself and went to make the coffee, slipping back into the old routine as quickly as he could. When he took the coffees up to Jack's office, the immortal man had his hands splayed on the desk and tears in his eyes as he looked up at Ianto.

He held up his own mug and put Jack's blue and white striped one down in front of him. "Hey, coffee?"

"You're a star, Ianto." He picked the mug up and smiled into it, groaning as the flavours washed through his mouth, "God, I've missed your coffee." Ianto smiled and bent to kiss him, leaving his hand on Jack's shoulder when he pulled back. "Yeah," Jack grinned, "I missed that too."

The cog door rolled back, admitting Tosh and Owen bickering lightly. They waved a greeting up to the two men in the office and sat down at their desks, starting up their computers and opening reports whilst Ianto went back to the kitchenette to put on another pot of coffee. Gwen arrived just in time to collect her mug from his tray as she passed him on the way to her own desk, calling out greetings to everyone and beaming broadly. "Jamie slept through last night!" she laughed, "we're getting there."

Tosh cooed and leaned back in her chair, holding her mug in both hands, "He's grown so fast; they both seem to have grown much faster than Becca did at their age."

"Yeah, it seems that way, but Mum assures me they haven't." Gwen sighed, flopping into her chair, "So, Ianto, how did it go yesterday?"

"Yesterday?" he raised an eyebrow at her and looked through the file of what they'd sorted and stored the day before.

"Yeah, with Jack," she rolled her eyes and took the file off him, "How was he?"

Ianto smiled over her shoulder at Jack, who had emerged from his office, "He's fine."

Gwen followed his gaze and beamed up at Jack, "Jack!" She bounced up and hurried up the stairs to hug him, "Going to behave?"

He laughed and saluted, "Yes, Ma'am."

Tosh wiggled her toes and put her shoe, which for some unknown reason she'd removed, back on, standing up and picking up the file, "Right, guys, we've still got a lot of work to do on this shipment from UNIT. Ianto?"

He looked across at her with a small frown of thought, hands on his hips and feet apart, "Owen and Gwen, you go up to the garage and sort stuff out up there. Tosh, you can enter stuff in the system, and Jack and I can do the fetching and carrying down into the archives. I think that's the best way of doing it."

"Okay, Teaboy," Owen groaned as he stood up and grimaced, "I'm getting too old for this." Only Ianto noticed the flicker of pain that ran across Jack's face, "We'll go and get started, I think there's a couple of bits for you two to put where they belong from yesterday still, but that's about it."

"Don't worry," Gwen grinned, waiting by the lift, "we'll send you plenty to do."

Jack laughed and offered Tosh his arm, "Wouldn't want to be bored, would we Ianto?"

"No, Sir," he deadpanned, not even noticing that he'd slipped back into their old ways so much, "otherwise we may have to distract ourselves."

Laughter rang around the Hub and lingered after they had all gone to their respective tasks, mingling with the opening chords of Baba O'Riley and the groan of the lift into the not-silence of the ever-watchful, ever-waiting Hub.

Gwen flicked her earphone to silent and indicated that Owen do the same, "Do you think Ianto took him back?"

Owen tapped his foot with the music and watched her reflection in the mirror, "I think he took Ianto back. Or maybe both. They were both arseholes over this Gwen, it's not any less Ianto's fault than it is Jack's. They both made catastrophic mistakes, we all did, and it nearly ripped the team apart. It did rip the team apart," he sighed, "Gwen, Tosh and I are leaving – soon. Tosh is..."

She grinned, "Tosh is pregnant." He stared at her. "Oh Owen," she laughed, "I knew before she did. I'll act surprised when you announce it to the team though, don't worry." She turned to look at him directly and laid her hand on his arm, "I'm happy for you both, I really am. This is what we're fighting for."

"Yeah, it is." He grinned, "I want a girl, Tosh is hoping for a boy. And we're both hoping that she gets Tosh's brains."

"You chosen a name yet?"

"Nah, haven't even considered it really..." he smiled, "Although I've always liked Kyri." The lift doors opened and they strode over to the boxes, pulling open the first box and opening the connection again, "We're up, guys."

"Talking about us, Owen?" Jack's voice chuckled down the line at him and he grinned involuntarily.

"Gwen was complaining about Toby's sleeping patterns, I didn't want to subject the rest of you to it too."

"Cheek!" she laughed and thumped him, "I was telling Owen, my Mum thinks they're going to take it in terms now, one sleeping through one night, and the next one the next night, so they get sleep and prevent us."

"And that's quite enough of that," Owen clamped his hand over her mouth, "You lot set?"

"Nearly," Jack grunted and Ianto swore, "Ianto has just put that stupidly heavy ball away, on his finger, but it's a good start. That looks like it hurt." The only reply form Ianto was a growl, apparently muffled by a finger in his mouth. "You can start sending stuff down though."

"Okay, Galicos blender coming your way."

"The only race to have invented the bicycle before the wheel." Jack informed them. Down in the archives Ianto smacked him lightly and they laughed as they returned to Tosh. Jack held the door open for him, "Seriously though, they did. I think we've got one down in the archives somewhere, it used a sort of skis."

Tosh smiled at them over the top of her computer and pointed to a strange device on the table near them, "Blender, Jack. I've done the shelf label for you." Jack vanished down into the archives as the teleporter beeped, indicating the arrival of a Floktean clock – 18 hours and five hands.

They worked steadily, consciously relaxing back into the swing of having the five of them back together. And if Ianto directed his comments to Jack slightly more often and Gwen occasionally asked questions about him as if he weren't there, no one commented. It would take time, but they would take the time to win back what they'd lost, before Jack lost it all again.

After a few hours, Gwen went out to get pizzas in and they ate together in the board room, laughing and joking and listening to one of Jack's outrageous stories. Once they'd eaten, they stayed where they were, enjoying each others' company too much to go back to work just yet.

But, of course, the rift had never been accommodating. The alarms blared and they went into action immediately; Tosh went to her computers to find the reason for the alarms, Ianto went automatically for Jack's greatcoat – it seemed only natural now he was back in his trademark blue shirt – whilst Jack, Gwen and Owen geared up.

"Tosh, what have we got?"

"Positive spike in Blackweir, by the river. Looks big enough for something to have come through, but there's no way of knowing."

"CCTV?"

"No, it's in the part down there, I'll track down the feeds for the surrounding area and see if whatever came through moves. I'm picking up electrical impulses in the area that weren't there before."

"Okay." They all looked up at Jack as Ianto helped him to put his coat down and smoothed down the shoulders. He swallowed on the lump that had formed in his throat at their automatic reactions and nodded, "Let's go find us an alien. Tosh, you control us from back here. Gwen, Owen and Ianto, with me."

Ianto passed him his gun, their hands lingering a second longer than was necessary. "Yes, Sir."

They were back.

As he, Gwen and Owen waited on the Plass for Ianto to come around with the SUV, he put his hands in his pockets. His fingers brushed against a piece of paper. Curious, he pulled it out and saw his name written on an envelope in Ianto's neat script. He opened it and felt the lump return as he read the five words written on the piece of paper inside. Without a word, he slipped it back into the envelope and put the envelope back in his pocket, more grateful than ever for chance encounters.

* * *

**Author's Note:** The End. Thanks for reading, I hope youe enjoyed it as much as I did. Thank you so much to everyone who's reviewed, I'm like a little kid at Christmas when I get a review, it really does make my day (hint hint lol)

I'm going to concentrate on Out Of Place for a while now, which means that updates will probably continue to be slow, because I haven't the foggiest what's going on in Sin City, but I promise that that's at the top of my priorities list. Unless my Mum asks, in which case it's finding a job ;)

Galaxxx


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